


ghost stories

by just_peachyy



Category: Gintama
Genre: !!!! i love them but getting them to do ANYTHING is like pulling teeth, Anal Sex, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Constipation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-12 00:21:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15983612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_peachyy/pseuds/just_peachyy
Summary: He's off his game.





	ghost stories

**Author's Note:**

> honestly....this is born from a delirious binge session where I was sick and watched Four Devas Arc and wrote till dawn and upon my restless slumber, discovered drivel in my drafts doc. After a LOT of polishing, here is what remains! It's kinda short rip but hdhhd please bear with me

One of the ronin looks like _him_. His own teacher stands before him but no, the shape of his eyes is all wrong, his mouth is too weary and turned down at the corners - 

He's off his game. Someone he can't see comes up behind him and slices the back of one thigh and he falls to his knees with a gasp that's forced out of him, and someone else knocks him on the head with the butt of their sword. He barely fights his way back from the brink of consciousness, sweeping their legs out from under them and twisting the sword out of the ronin's grip before stabbing him through the shoulder. 

"You idiot." He hears, and Gintoki turns around to see Hijikata, bloodied and weary, a cigarette still in his mouth. 

Gintoki blinks blood out of his eyes just as they roll back into his head.

"Yorozuya!"

He collapses onto the concrete, his cheek against the grit, and the last thing he hears is Hijikata's voice calling from above him, sounding as if they are both underwater. 

** 

He blinks, and the sky is pale grey. Leaden skies, again and again. 

You're a ghost, Bansai had said, a living ghost. You're obsessed and you can't let go. 

Shoyou's hand on his forehead, holding his hand, patting his head - a thousand moments, and Gintoki misses each and every one of them except for one. The last one. The slight resistance of his blade passing through muscle and bone, the tickle of his master's hair flickering past him, touching his cheek in one last caress. Takasugi screaming hard enough for his voice to give out, thrashing, his eyes dripping venom and rage. 

A ghost.

His voice saying each word in each lesson surely and carefully like he was trying to memorize the words, his voice calm and melodic. _Gintoki_ , he calls. 

_Gintoki. It's time to wake up._

**

Gintoki sits up fast, collides with something hard, and falls back onto the pillow, dazed. The room tilts drunkenly around him, and his vision pulsates. 

"Oy, oy, watch it!" Hijikata holds his hand over his nose. "Stone head, for God's sake."

Gintoki looks at him tiredly. "You look like shit." he rasps. 

The vice chief looks at him with a look of mixed relief and exasperation. "Shut up. You don't look much better."

He probably doesn't. If Hijikata got off with bandages around his torso and his head, a compress on his cheek, and his arm in a sling, Gintoki really doesn't want to know what he looks like. He closes his head and turns away from him. 

"Should you be in here?" he asks tonelessly. 

"This is my office." Hijikata says dryly. Gintoki hears the click of his lighter, his first sigh of nicotine. Hijikata doesn't touch him. Gintoki feels numb. 

"Yorozuya."

"Mm?"

"I've never seen you fight like that." His tone betrays his worry. 

"Badly, you mean?" Gintoki looks at the ceiling. He can feel a full ache down to his bones. Leaden limbs. 

"Unfocused." Hijikata blows out a stream of smoke. "What got into you?"

 _A ghost_. "Nothing." He closes his eyes. "Let me sleep."

He can feel the weight of Hijikata's eyes on him for a moment, then hears him get up and leave, shutting the doors softly behind him. Only when Gintoki is sure he is gone does he let himself cry. 

**

Suddenly work overwhelms him. Hijikata arranges to have Gintoki moved to the Shimura's dojo, and goes back into his office to work steadily through the reports that pile up on his desk, not wanting to neglect Gintoki for the sake of his work. And besides, he doesn't entirely seem to want to be there for the moment.

Gintoki had been strange since the business in the crumbling buildings where his job and Hijikata's had crossed paths. He had arrived on foot, distant, not bantering, not one immature comment out of him. His eyes were empty when they looked at Hijikata, and even when they had stalked through the halls of the building as a team he had kept to himself, answering only perfunctorily. He was far away. He was closer to the shiroyasha than he was to the sweet loving Odd Jobs boss in that moment. 

It had set Hijikata on edge. 

When he had been recovering in his office, Hijikata had been on his way back when he had heard the soft sobs coming from behind the screen doors. He had paused, and gone around the other way to the courtyard with his mind spinning. Gintoki was a deeply private person once you got past his crass, loud exterior. He was like Hijikata that way. He listens to his other self through the doors for a beat more before emerging into the courtyard. He would ask him about it once the moment had passed. 

Gintoki's employees come to pick him up at the end of the day, catching Hijikata as he returns from his kendo drills. He had found Gintoki sitting up against the wall, the blanket puddled around his waist, staring off absently into the shoji screens around the alcove beside Hijikata's desk. He'd looked up at Hijikata with his unstable gaze. He'd kissed him gently, relished the feeling of Gintoki's fingers curling desperately into his hair. 

He'd watched the kids prop Gintoki up between the two of them and walk off after declining Hijikata's offer to drive them over. 

A couple days pass. He remembers most of them as a blur of work and reading and inking countless reminders, letters, requests, condolences, of smoking on the engawa for brief moments of silence, of watching plum blossoms drift to the ground like snow.

At the end of the week, he goes on a patrol to get some air and hopefully check up on Odd-Jobs. 

Yorozuya is empty, and Catherine tells him that the three of them and their weird dog are all at the Shimuras'. Hijikata walks there after his patrol, buys a box of sweet mochi from a store along the way. As he knocks on the door, he hears barking and a girl shouting after the dog. The doors heave open and China looks up at him with the same dead-eyed expression that she's learned from Gintoki, sukonbu hanging from her lip. She's holding back her dog with one hand, the door propped open with her foot. 

"What?" She asks. 

"Sorry to barge in. I wanted to see if you were all alright." Hijikata holds up the bag from the sweet shop. "Here."

She lights up and she takes them from him seriously, her eyes never leaving the package. "Everyone's alright, Mr Officer," she starts, but Glasses appears behind her, sleeves drawn up and a broom in his hands. 

"Ah! Hijikata-san! What are you doing here?" He asks, smiling. China runs off with the sweets, the dog on her tail. 

"Just wanted to check that you were alright." Hijikata says. "I'll get going, now. Sorry to barge in without warning."

"No, wait! You should stay for tea, Hijikata-san! Aneue made a fresh pot," he says, pushing the door open wider. Hijikata hesitates, but steps inside, following Shinpachi further into the grounds. He leaves his shoes at the genkan and is lead to the main room, where Kagura has already cracked open the box of mochi. Gintoki is also there, still heavily bandaged, dark bags under his eyes. He's playing a game with Kagura where they take turns throwing mochi into the other's mouth. Hijikata's heart jumps at the sight of him. 

Gintoki's eyes lift lazily to his and widen ever so slightly, but nothing else betrays his surprise. 

"Oy, Oogushi-kun, do you have a reservation?" Gintoki drawls. A mochi hits the side of his mouth and Kagura bursts into delighted laughter, rolling onto her back. 

"No." Hijikata says, sitting down at the low table. "Didn't even dress formally either. But you're in your pajamas, so I guess it doesn't matter." 

There relief in his bones and adrenaline in his veins as he looks at Gintoki; he seems a whole different person, and Hijikata's neck prickles. He doesn't know whether or not this is good. 

A small smile graces Gintoki's face. He opens his mouth to say something but the fusuma opens and Shinpachi and Otae enter, each holding trays with cups and pots of tea. 

"Kagura-chan, you started without us?" Shinpachi says, his tone turning motherly and scolding. Kagura sticks her tongue out at him and tosses another mochi at Gintoki.

"Ah, Hijikata-san! I hope your boss won't be joining us today." Tae smiles sweetly, setting down a cup in front of him. 

He thanks her. "I don't think so." As soon as the words leave his mouth, a familiar head pops out from underneath the kotatsu in the corner. 

"Ah, Toshi! You're here too!" Kondo-san says seriously. A naginata has materialized in Tae's hands, and Hijikata winces at the sound of his chief being chased off over the walls of the dojo. 

"If Kondo-san isn't at headquarters, then I don't have much time to spare." Hijikata says after things have settled down (namely, when Tae has propped the naginata against the wall a safe distance away). The box of mochi is nearly empty, and his tea has gone cold. "I'll get going. Sorry for the intrusion."

"No, no." Shinpachi fusses, getting up to collect his cup. "Not at all."

"Oy, oy. I'll walk you out so you don't get lost." Gintoki volunteers from his seat, making his suggestion sound like it has done him a great deal of personal pain. Hijikata blinks; the genkan is just straight down the hall, and he'd probably have to give up his seat as vice-chief if he couldn't find the entryway, but Tae and the kids are looking most smug and embarrassed (mostly Shinpachi) as he gets up. 

Gintoki pulls him into the hallway before he can get in another word, and the fusuma slams shut behind them. Gintoki pulls him along a couple more meters until the genkan and pushes him into the small alcove; Hijikata can see the sweat on his collarbone. The roil of relief, love, the ache of Gintoki's absence comes roaring back and he swallows hard past the sudden lump in his throat. 

"Oy." He pushes him back gently. "You sure you're alright?"

"Fine." Gintoki buries his face in Hijikata's neck and sighs, his body going nearly limp. Hijikata tightens his grip around him with a grunt to keep him up, hugs him closer. "Jeez. You sure know how to treat a guy." 

He must have recovered substantially; when he was in Hijikata's office, he had just seemed bone weary, and it had scared him to see him utterly stripped down like that. He's never seen Gintoki's eyes look that empty.

"Sorry." His fingers tighten unconsciously on the fabric of his shirt over his broad shoulders. "Hey." 

"Mm?"

Hijikata leans close, feels Gintoki's shudder as his lips brush his ear. "I have a day off tomorrow."

To his surprise, Gintoki pulls back with a shit-eating grin. "You have to work on your dirty talk, Oogushi-kun." He draws out the last word, watches the vein start to twitch in the officer's forehead. His smile softens and he relents, swaying close to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. 

"Well, it's about time we got to see each other properly." He whispers; his eyes are painfully soft, and as vulnerable as Hijikata's ever seen them. He's beautiful in the muted light of late afternoon filtering through the paper screen. 

Hijikata sighs and kisses him gently, chastely, before jumping back as his phone buzzes. 

"Sorry." He winces. "Work. I gotta go."

"Okay." Gintoki's smile is addictive. 

"Take it easy, okay?" Hijikata touches the compress on his cheek gently. He slips into the late afternoon sun, orange light blinding him for a moment, Gintoki's smile warming him. 

**

Finally; he opens the door of his apartment and Gintoki all but falls into his arms, nearly clutching him tight enough to hurt. Hijikata kicks the door closed and pulls him inside and down onto the futon in his room. The room is quiet except for their breathing, the rustle of skin over skin, the shush and rasp of clothes sliding over skin. Gintoki's hair is luminous in the half light. The rain starts up outside, tiptoeing gently over the veranda, singing their own peculiar song as they fall against the leaves of the plants Hijikata keeps on the balcony. 

They don't have to talk; they let their bodies reacquaint, and Hijikata relearns the parts of Gintoki that make him gasp and shudder and arch close to him. They have the whole day ahead of them, with the rain putting the entire world on hold. But no, the entire world is them, in his small apartment with his messy room and his cluttered, scattered brain, with the man he loves and grows ever fond and exasperated over. He sets the pace; achingly slow and gentle as molasses, like the creep of lava over the earth - inexorable and searing hot. 

I've missed you, Hijikata mouths the words into his skin, and Gintoki runs a hand over his side to agree, his lips parted for breath. 

I love you, Hijikata breathes when he is inside of him, and Gintoki gasps and nearly topples onto Hijikata, his hands clutching at his shoulders. He is sitting snugly in the vice chiefs lap, his hips twitching; Hijikata stares up at him with a look of wonder on his face. 

Gintoki's heart squeezes at his expression, and all of a sudden he feels choked by emotion. "Stop that," he gets out, his breath hitching. 

"Stop what?" Hijikata rolls his hips up. The room is so hot; his skin feels as if it is burning, like he is sinking into a scalding bath. 

"Looking at me like - like -" he stammers, his fingers tighten, leaving red marks on Hijikata's pale skin. 

"Like what?" He murmurs, swaying close and pressing his mouth to Gintoki's chest. He can feel his heart sprinting under his lips. 

"I - I don't know." Gintoki lies weakly. 

"Liar." Hijikata bites gently at the slight swell of his chest, licks over the skin to feel the salty sting of his sweat. His moans are music to his ears. 

"Hijikata-!" Gintoki throws his head back as the vice chief starts thrusting into him in earnest. 

"Tell me," Hijikata pants. He threads his fingers into Gintoki's hair and tugs gently. "Look at me. Tell me." 

Gintoki's eyes are damp. They glisten in the half light as he stares at him. "Hijikata," he whimpers. Hijikata indulges him, strokes gently down his side and over his stomach to grip his dick. Gintoki puts a hand over his mouth and whimpers. 

"Tell me." 

Gintoki bites down on his knuckle in an effort to stifle a cry as Hijikata hits a particularly good spot that has him writhing and gasping into his hand.

"You..." Gintoki says breathlessly. "You look like - like you would steal the moon for me," 

Hijikata puts his face against Gintoki's chest to breathe him in. "What else?" He startles as he feels a sudden hand in his hair, and feels Gintoki pulling gently. 

"Like you would give up mayonnaise. Or quit smoking." His eyes are luminous. 

Hijikata laughs, but the sound strangles and crumples when Gintoki rolls his hips down with a groan of pleasure. The sensation of him clenching around Hijikata ripples through his body like a tidal wave. His fingers catch on the shoulders of Hijikata's yukata, which has slipped completely off of one shoulder and is hanging on for dear life off his other one. It's puddled around his waist and he looks like some divine creature sitting in a pool of oil. Gintoki is enthralled; he's so goddamn beautiful.

When he faces the mass of feelings that he has for Hijikata, it is like he is staring into the sea. It is relentless, incredibly vast, and terrifying in its inexorability. The strange thing is that he doesn't entirely mind the thought of drowning. He leans into his solid warmth, pleasure and longing shooting through him and leaving him dizzy with the force of it. As if he can hear his thoughts, Hijikata locks eyes with him, his hand tightening at the same time. 

Something jerks deep inside of him and Gintoki comes with a gasp, fingers scrabbling at his shoulders. It jerks at his navel, pulses deep and slow inside of him. It's so good - he moans weakly as the last waves shake him, and falls against Hijikata's chest with his eyes shut, a deep satisfaction coming to rest in the marrow of his bones. 

"Oh God," Gintoki gasps. He can feel Hijikata's heart thundering under his lips. "Oh, Hijikata-"

Hijikata feels a strange twist in his stomach; he feels privileged to be able to see Gintoki in his most private moments, times where he lets down his walls and reveals himself to him. 

"I'm sorry I was away for so long." He murmurs into his hair. Gintoki snorts a bit, nuzzling into his skin. 

"Shut up. I'm sorry I was distant too."

"You couldn't even get out of bed, you have a good excuse." 

"Excuse nonetheless." His breath hitches as Hijikata slips out of him as he shifts. 

"Don't," He says as Hijikata moves to clean him up. "Leave it." Tiredness is etched into the lines of his body, and Hijikata realizes again, belatedly, that he is still recovering. 

"Okay," Hijikata answers, his face flushed. He pushes the cloth to the side and gathers Gintoki gingerly into his arms, stroking gently over the small of his back, the dip in his spine before his tailbone. They slump onto the futon together, Gintoki mostly on top of Hijikata, and listen to the rain lessening over them. 

"You're uncomfortable." Gintoki grumbles, poking Hijikata's chest. He hums slightly, but Gintoki doesn't move. 

"Listen, when you were staying in my office -" He starts a bit awkwardly. 

"Guess you heard me, huh?" He chuckles, but it sounds strained. 

"I didn't mean to."

"I know." Gintoki turns his face and closes his eyes against Hijikata's shoulder; he can feel his lashes tickling his skin. 

"Does it have to do with your wounds at that drug bust the other day?" 

"Kinda." He mumbles. His fingers are stroking absently over Hijikata's wrist. "It was -" he takes a breath, looks up at him. "It was this guy there. He looked like my sensei, and I'd been having nightmares and shit before that too." The last part comes out in a rush and there's a click as he snaps his mouth shut.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Hijikata asks, squeezing him gently. "If not me, then you could have at least told your kids, or Otose-san."

"Please don't mention her while we're still naked."

"Gintoki."

"Sorry, sorry." He runs a hand through his hair.

"Please don't do that. Y'know, hold things in by yourself. Bottling it up. Let people help you, okay?"

"I know." Gintoki gives him a small, bracing smile that shakes around the edges. 

"For Pete's sake." Hijikata scowls a bit. "You're an idiot. I love you."

Gintoki blinks rapidly, pink flooding his cheeks. "Uh - you do? I mean," He laughs. "Why? Wait, no. I mean. I love you too. Bastard."

Hijikata tsks, but feels his heart lift. The demon vice-chief leans down and presses a kiss to his lover's cheek, and settles in for bed. 

**

A couple days pass; Hijikata goes on with his reports, patrols, terrorist busting, shogun guarding business until one day the monotony is broken. He's halfway through his patrol loop when he passes by Yorozuya's house and sees the windows burning with a warm light, hears the familiar bickering all the way from the street. He smirks. It's about time. 

The next day, Hijikata passes Gintoki on the street. It's raining, the skies are grey, and rain dampens his hair and sticks it to his forehead. He forgot his umbrella at headquarters, and Sougo had given him the wrong weather report.

Gintoki meets his eyes from a distance, and when they near each other he reaches out first. They pass each other without a word, and Hijikata feels the brush of Gintoki's fingertips over his. 

He leaves with a small smile on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, as always!! It means so much to me. I'm @drunkmaenad on tumblr if you wanna come yell/cry/chill with me!


End file.
